Michael Kupperman has a reputation for surreal and absurdist indie comics that are literal funny books. I wish I could link to sex blimps but the structure of his Tales Designed to Thrizzle doesn't really lend itself to me explaining it with one hotlink. He created Snake n Bacon

That probably still doesn't explain his traditional style. Think Tim and Eric with no cringe and more pure insanity

He just released a memoir about his relationship with his father who was a record setting winner on a children's game show in the forties. And now that I think about it, I can afford to buy it now or very soon.

...the cartoon itself points out that Henry Ford put out 91 articles decrying judaism. The modern equivalent would be if Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos got together to put out a weekly podcast about how much Islam sucks.

Or if a president was elected based in part on a statement that Mexico is intentionally sending criminals to the US. This isn't a specifically Jewish problem and Kupperman outright says he's got no ties to Judaism other than his name. He's comparing the humanizing mass propaganda of the forties to demonizing mass media of today

Are you comparing an artist you presumably know nothing on a personal level because he's made opaque and absurd humor strips until about last month about to a transwoman who supported a bigot in the election only to regret it because it turns out he's as bad as everyone on the left thought? I can add random pictures to posts too to make them 100% less clear in their intention.

But nothing is truly random so I changed my mind while taking 5 seconds to think of what I'd google.

No, dumbass. I'm pointing out that there's a driving narrative to normalize minority or outsider groups that's every bit as proactive as it was in the fucking 40s. Your words:

This isn't a specifically Jewish problem and Kupperman outright says he's got no ties to Judaism other than his name. He's comparing the humanizing mass propaganda of the forties to demonizing mass media of today.

Go luck up the lyrics to Charlie Daniels' "Uneasy Rider '88" and know that the world has changed radically for the better for transgender individuals. And that's because of the media.

1986:

1999:

2015:

"The media" decided transsexuals were okay some time in the early '90s. And ever since, the pathway has been normalization. You can't say "this isn't a specifically Jewish problem" and then completely ignore the context of the iconic image of normalization of transgender people particularly when Tom Hanks and Dustin Hoffman made their careers lampooning the transgender community just a generation ago.

I've been aware of Kupperman for 20 fuckin' years. He was in the alt-weekly when I was in college. That doesn't mean his assertion that a Jewish dog'n'pony show during WWII is somehow more normalizing than the assembled media onslaught of the modern era.

Caitlyn Jenner is visual shorthand for betrayal and hypocrisy for people like myself who are tuned into LGBT rights and that you think I'm stupid for not seeing that out of context image and identifying that cover as an example of acceptance shows how arrogant and out of touch you are

So...

My starting point for the discussion: read this man's heartfelt narrative about the experience he had as the son of a distant father who was used for arguably beneficial propaganda during WWII and how that's shaped his perception of the current media coverage of racism

My starting point for the discussion: read this man's heartfelt narrative about the experience he had as the son of a distant father who was used for arguably beneficial propaganda during WWII and how that's shaped his perception of the current media coverage of racism

I'm familiar with the song Uneasy Rider. Both versions. I think it's funny how making fun of rednecks morphed into homophobia.

And if you wanted to make that point you shouldn't have slapped a picture of Caitlyn Jenner into a reply about the humanization of Jews in the the 1940's as a way to make your point as if everyone can read your mind. You offered no explanation or context but you seem to be aggressively defending the point that your hot take on a comic is correct. And that take is simply that pro Jewish propaganda still exists. Yeah, never said it didn't. But tacit mass media defense of racism is the point here.

You're entirely missing the artistic intent which is to shine a light on the changing media landscape. As well as subtle personal narrative the author offers in the long form version of this that is the memoir I mentioned. And looking like a damn fool all the while to me because you're missing the point, not reading between the lines, personally insulting me for not being a mind-reader and continuing to double down on how right you are because you're like fucking omniscient while demeaning anyone who dares to stand up to you for being an asshole because you read some shit that makes you an authority on virtually everything and thus entitled to condescend to anyone freely.

If the artistic intent is to shine a light on the changing media landscape, I'm not missing it: Racism and antisemitism were rampant in the '40s and they aren't now, while media involvement in normalization is every bit as prevalent. The latter is directly caused by the former. This is a good thing.

Kupperman is making the lazy, easy, knee-jerk liberal move of going zero-to-Hitler in five seconds or less and it's fucking tedious. The media has always been manipulated by the state and always will be: Operation Mockingbird was Allan Dulles' propaganda arm during the '50s and it's not like he sat out WWII. This shit wasn't subtle; here's 1944:

Meanwhile, his argument is that Trump won't condemn racists, a right-wing columnist in the New York Times won't condemn Stephen Miller who's Jewish, by the way and that ZOMG there are racists on the Internet. Therefore, equivalency.

No equivalency.

There are a million remixes of Richard Spencer getting decked on the Internet, too, and the alt-right can't hold a march without being outnumbered 10:1. Are there too many racists in America? Probably always going to be true. Have they been emboldened by a reactionary populist in the White House? Probably also always going to be true.

But putting "the necessity of Stephen Miller" in a panel next to "Americans Unearth Nazi Murder Factory" is a fucking bridge too far and it diminishes everything real that Trump has brought upon us.